Technology cross

Definition

Technology cross is a visual way to show how a product/technology is compared to other products and other alternatives.

Given a comparison scenario the cross is filled is placing in the center the evaluated product. On the vertical are placed the other products, putting on top the similar or better ones and on bottom the worst.

On the wide there are alternatives, that means different technologies that can do the same or a similar task (e.g. an online disk could be an alternative to an online backup) on the left the better alternatives, on the right worse ones.

The graph will be sometime like:

A - similar or better products

B - better alternatives

Reference product

C - worst alternatives

D - worst products

Formally if a comparison is done on a set of requisites (criteria), the A sector is filled with all the products that have a not worse evaluation on that criteria (compared to the reference product), the D sector with the products with a worse evaluation.

The B sector will be fill with the technologies alternative for which the will be possible to have a super set of requisites, the super set will include all the vetoable criteria and a set of other criteria that could be considered not worse that the reference set.

Last C sector will be filled with the alternatives for which will be possible to define a set of similar criteria, but that will not include all the vetoable ones.